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Why Jury Decisions Reflect the View of Government
The most famous trial where a jury stood up refusing to find the defendant guilty in the face of a corrupt government, was that of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania. Penn was the leader of the Quakers in London. The sect was not recognized by the government and was forbidden to meet in any building for the purpose of worship. In 1670, William Penn held a worship service on a quiet street, which was attended by a peaceful group of fellow Quakers. Penn and another Quaker, William Mead, were arrested on a charge of disturbing the king’s peace and summoned to stand trial.
As the two men entered the courtroom, a bailiff ordered them to place their hats, which they had removed, back on their heads. When they complied, they were called forward and held in contempt of court for being in the courtroom with their hats on. Penn discovered contempt of court is a personal prerogative of the judge and is an infliction of punishment by a judge who becomes the legislator, jury, and the sentencing judge.
Penn demanded to know upon what crime he was being charged for preaching. The judge refused to supply any information as to his crime and instead referred vaguely to the common law. When Penn protested that he was entitled to a specific indictment (NOTICE), he was removed from the presence of the judge and jury, and confined in an enclosed corner of the room known as the bale-dock.
Penn could neither confront the witnesses who accused him of preaching to the Quakers nor ask them questions about their charges against him. Several witnesses testified that Penn had preached to a gathering, which included Mead, but one showed some hesitancy as to whether Mead had been present. The judge turned to Mead and questioned him directly. In effect, the judge became the prosecutor, as he asked Mead if he was guilty. Mead invoked the common-law privilege against self-incrimination, which provoked hostile comments from the judge. The court then sent Mead to join Penn in the bale-dock out of the sight of the jury and witnesses.
Finally, after the testimony the court concluded, the judge instructed the jury to find the defendants guilty as charged, dictating what verdict he expected. Penn tried to protest, but was silenced and again sent out of the courtroom. The jury, for its part, proved sympathetic to the two defendants and refused the judge’s command to find the defendants guilty.
The judge at this point became enraged and sent the jury back to reconsider their verdict. When they returned with the same verdict, the court criticized the jury’s leader, Bushnell, and demanded “a verdict that the court will accept, and you shall be locked up without meat, drink, fire, and tobacco…We will have a verdict by the help of God or you will starve for it.”
Thereafter, the jury was sent back three more times, but returned with the same verdict. Finally, the jury refused to reconsider. The judge then fined each member of the jury forty marks and ordered them imprisoned until the fine was paid. Penn and Mead went to prison anyway, held in contempt for obeying the bailiff’s order that they put on their hats.
Later, the members of the jury won a writ of habeas corpus and were released from prison. Penn and Mead left England after their release from prison, having a taste of justice, and sailed to America. (Earl Warren, “A Republic, If You Can Keep It”, p. 113-115)
This is a famous case for it illustrated that at some point, the faith of the people in government collapses so much that finally juries stand up in protest against corrupt and biased prosecutions. In France, it became the Revolution with Bastille Day freeing the prisoners from jail.
Because American juries were rising up against the false prosecution of the king, the Sixth Amendment states that you are entitled to an impartial jury and a trial in the “district wherein the crime shall have been committed.” Why? Because the king would put you on a ship in chains and put you on trial in England where the jury would rule against an American. That had the effect of denying you the right to even call upon any witness in your favor.
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense. – The Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution
Juries do not take their constitutional role seriously and judges today disagree that they have the right to reject whatever he tells them the law should mean. In 1895 in the case of Sparf v. United States written by Justice John Marshall Harlan, the United States Supreme Court held 5 to 4 that a trial judge has no responsibility to inform the jury of the right to nullify laws. This decision, often cited, has led to a common practice by United States judges to penalize anyone who attempts to present a nullification argument to jurors and to declare a mistrial if such argument has been presented to them. In some states, jurors are likely to be struck from the panel during voir dire if they will not agree to accept as correct the rulings and instructions of the law as provided by the judge. This illustrates that the very same powers of the judge in the case against William Penn are alive and well.
In recent rulings, the courts have continued to prohibit informing juries about jury their CONSTITUTIONAL right to nullification. In a 1969, Fourth Circuit decision, U.S. v. Moylan (417 F.2d 1002), the Court affirmed the concept of jury nullification, but upheld the power of a court to refuse to permit an instruction to the jury to this effect. The Moylan court wrote:
“If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed power of the jury to acquit.” — 4th Circuit Court of Appeals United States v. Moylan 1969
So how can the government refuse to explain the right of the jury? This is what it always comes down to: Justice = Just US.
In 1988, the Sixth Circuit upheld a jury instruction: “There is no such thing as valid jury nullification.” In ‘United States v. Thomas (1997), the Second Circuit ruled that jurors can be removed if there is evidence that they intend to nullify the law. History repeats because the passions of man never change. Judges enjoy the power and do not want juries to refuse their commands. This is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL and demonstrates how and why the cycle of how nations collapse always returns.
Defense Department Exempt From Providing Any Accounting
Part of the 9/11 conspiracy, exposed on September 10, 2001, is an unexplained $2.3 trillion missing from the Defense Budget. The plane that struck the Pentagon (if it was a plane) hit the room with all the records. That ended the investigation exposed the day before and Donald Rumsfeld promised to investigate.
Well 9/11 certainly stopped that investigation, but not the fraud. Now the budget amounts to $8.5 trillion that is not accountable since 1996. The way to deal with it this time, instead of attacking a city to place blame on someone else, is to just exempt it from accounting for anything. Because of its persistent inability to tally its accounts, the Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not complied with a law that requires annual audits of all government departments, as reported by Reuters. That total sum now exceeds the value of China’s economic output last year. We are just supposed to accept that the NSA needs to track and listen to everyone, and we should just trust them. This is simply absurd.
Of course, this is totally unconstitutional. This violated Article I, known to include the Appropriation Clause.
No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time. (ARTICLE I, SECTION 9, CLAUSE 7)
The Constitution was NEGATIVE and its purpose was to RESTRAIN government. It is simply ignored, but it is TREASON for those in Congress to even create an exception for the Department of Defense to account for all this money. Yet they want to hunt us down to account for every dime we find in a parking lot or your sofa.
The Constitution – A Lawyer’s Perspective
COMMENT:
Martin,
Excellent, refreshing review of the enactment and enforcement of legislation under the Constitution; your blog entry should be taught in grammar schools across the country.
I graduated Columbia Law school and have been practicing for 30 years. No exaggeration, your straightforward exegeses of the plain wording of the Constitution beats hands down what one reads in Supreme Court, Courts of Appeal and US District Court opinions, and what you read and hear in prestigious law journals and in Constitutional Law class. It seems that these writers and speakers always selectively interpret this magnificent document with one eye on maintaining the power structure of which they are a part — and which reserves the right to itself to kill, steal and lie (contrary to the Ten Commandments, as you have noted) — oh, and to squash anyone who points out that they kill, steal and lie.
Keep up the great work Martin. I swear people will be writing folk songs about you one day!
REPLY: Thank you. I probably studied Constitutional law more intensely than any school would dare to teach. I traced the reasoning back for each element. You have to take something back to the seed from which it sprouts in order to understand what it really means. Those who write about law often have an agenda interpreted through the lens in which they see the world.
A classic example of this bias is the gun issue. Even the whole Second Amendment about the right to bear arms was not just to protect the people; it was also intended to eliminate standing armies to PREVENT war, which was seen as evil. Kings were paying for armies, so why not get your money’s worth.
The Second Amendment comes about from a meeting in Vienna. Charles-Louis de Secondat Montesquieu, baron de La Brede et de (1689–1755) met the political leader and soldier, the Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663–1736), whose political discussions helped spark ideas within Montesquieu expanding his understanding of government. It was this encounter between Montesquieu and the Prince of Savoy that shaped the right to bear arms. Prince of Savoy explained that having standing armies led to an easier declaration of war than having to raise an army. In this light, nuclear weapons have helped to deter war because the devastation would be too great. The U.S. only invades nations who do not have nukes, which actually creates an incentive to get them.
Taxes were never a right of the king. Taxes required consent by the people and the reason was for war. Create a war that never ends, like the 100 year war, and you create the incentive to tax.
Just follow the money and you will arrive at the proper interpretation more often than not.
The Right to Notice, Ignored by Government
You cannot be found guilty unless you KNOWINGLY violated the law. The way they get around this is they PRESUME you KNOW the law. The millions of laws they enact each year, you are supposed to know, so Congress just has to write a law and you are PRESUMED to know what they wrote.
One of the greatest tyrannies of government is the enactment of so many laws, and then they simply left it to private printers, as they still do today to publish books, which declare the laws a man could lose his property and life for violating. In the 1640s and 1650s, pamphlets published in London regularly demanded that Parliament compile and distribute an official publication of existing statutory law, for government could pass a law, arrest you, despite you having no idea such a law had been passed. At the time, the official collection of Parliamentary acts was kept in the Tower of London, and it was left to private printers to issue printed editions of English law.
Finally, in 1647 a pamphlet entitled The Lawyers Bane urged members of Parliament to summarize and publish the corpus of statutory law enacted over the centuries because men should “understand those laws and ordinances by which their rights, privileges, interests, and estates are secured.” This tyranny is also prohibited in the U.S. Constitution, known as the Ex Post Facto Clause, whereby no one shall be held criminally for a crime enacted retroactively. Of course, pro-government judges have declared that does not apply to property, only one’s life and person. When it comes to money, there is no notice requirement.
Today, you can be prosecuted for some law that is not even applied as it was intended. Khairullozhon Matanov is a 24-year-old former cab driver from Quincy, Massachusetts. The night of the Boston Marathon bombings, he had dinner with Tamerlan and Dhzokhar Tsarnaev at a kebob restaurant in Somerville. Four days later, Matanov saw photographs of his friends listed as suspects in the bombings on the CNN and FBI websites. Later that day, he went to the local police. He told them that he knew the Tsarnaev brothers and that they’d had dinner together that week. However, he lied about whose idea it was to have dinner, lied about exactly when he had looked at the Tsarnaevs’ photos on the internet, lied about whether Tamerlan lived with his wife and daughter, and lied about when he and Tamerlan had last prayed together. Matanov likely lied to distance himself from the brothers or to cover up his own jihadist sympathies — or maybe he was just confused.
The government never alleged that Matanov was involved in the bombings or that he knew about them beforehand. Nevertheless, Matanov’s case demonstrates that (1) you do not have to know you violated any law to be criminally imprisoned, and (2) you are better off never contacting the government about anything, for they will prosecute you even for being a good citizen.
The government charged Matanov with four counts of obstruction of justice; three counts for making false statements based on the aforementioned lies (that were irrelevant to the case); one count for destroying “any record, document or tangible object” with intent to obstruct a federal investigation.
This last charge of obstructing justice was for deleting videos on his computer they argue might have demonstrated his own terrorist sympathies for clearing his browser history. So just knowing these guys and going to the government should have demonstrated he did not have terrorist sympathies, but that was their reason for charging him, for they might have had a case but do not know. So the new standard would mean that using anything incognito becomes a chargeable crime.
They can pass a law like destroying records under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a law enacted by Congress in the wake of the Enron scandal, and if federal prosecutors can make it fit anything else, they will. In the case of John Yates, he was charged with throwing overboard three undersized fish and the government charged him with destroying evidence. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Yates. But at what cost? If you do not have the money for lawyers, there is no right to equal justice.
So you do not even need to know the law. They can write a law because of Enron and it will be creatively applied to throwing fish overboard or erasing your browser. This is the problem with law – we have no idea what law is or could be.
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